Electronic mail (email) is a widely used format to communicate over the Internet. The use of email is commonplace for personal and business use. Individuals use email to communicate with other users. Additionally, electronic documents can be attached to and sent with the email messages.
Email may be exchanged between clients via servers. The servers play a role that may include both enhanced functionality and storage for email messages and any attached files.
In one method for transferring email messages, an email program may reside in part on a user's computer. The user drafts the email message on the user's computer (including entry of at least one recipient address in an address field and entry of a body of the email) and the email program replicates the message (i.e., copies, uploads) to an email server computer, which may sometimes be provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The email message is subsequently replicated (i.e., copied, downloaded) to a recipient's computer, from the email server computer.
Another common technique for sending and receiving email messages is for an email program to operate primarily at the server computer. For example, in a web-based email program (webmail) a client may access the server computer and draft an email message in a user interface operating on the client computer. Upon “sending” the email message, the server computer stores the email message in association with the recipient. In web-based email programs, a copy is not typically stored on the client computer. The recipient may access the server computer from a client computer and view the email message in a user interface on the client computer. The email message need not be stored on the recipient client computer. Some email programs are capable of both techniques at a user's discretion.
An email messaging program (e.g., an electronic mail program) typically includes or has access to a directory of recipient addresses, which may be on a local client computer or on a server computer. In a business environment, the directory typically includes the recipient addresses of all employees in the same company.
An email messaging program generally has the ability to organize email messages into threads. An email thread (or simply “thread”) is a group of email messages all relating to a single topic. There are different ways in which an email message can be identified as belonging to a thread. The email messaging program could look for matching subject lines of messages. Another way in which a message could be identified as belonging to a thread would be by use of a unique identifier present in each message belonging to the thread. Such an identifier need not be found in the subject line portion of the message.